


The Hattening 2076

by RogueVector



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, McCree's hat - Freeform, everyone has to wear it. EVERYONE, except for Winston because MY BUDGETS, nobody is taking this seriously, playful conflict
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-01 17:56:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8632792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogueVector/pseuds/RogueVector
Summary: With the Recall, old and new alike come to answer and join the cause. And among them is former Blackwatch Agent Jesse McCree.McCree's hat has been places. Possibly more places than its owner, thanks to the fondly remembered tradition of lending it out and passing it around to whoever cared to put it on their head.But when Hana and Lena decide that the new members of Overwatch should continue this tradition, and Mercy lays out a challenge, it sparks a conflict that could split Watchpoint: Gibraltar in half.Literally.Suffice to say, Winston's repair budget did NOT account for this.Inspired by TDLH and conversations with Snowsheba





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [thanks, dad. love, hana](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7328341) by [Snowsheba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowsheba/pseuds/Snowsheba). 



> Hallo all and welcome to the Hattening! Don't take this seriously, because I won't be. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy! Headcanons and notes about this timeline at the end of the fic!

Lunchtime was at full swing in Watchpoint: Gibraltar, the new home base of the reborn Overwatch.

It was getting busier and busier ever since Winston’s recall signal went out, with former agents returning day by day on the first few weeks. Some seemed to rise from their graves to answer the call; Jack Morrison and Ana Amari among them, causing some hilariously touching, wet-faced reunions among the old guard. Reinhardt, in particular, had threatened to put them underground for real this time around with how tightly he had hugged the returnees. Others had been less dramatic; one day the engineering bay was cold and empty, the next day the forges were hot and churning out new parts for Crusader armor, each machine fussed over by the stoic Torbjörn Lindholm, who seemed to act as if he had never even left the old manufactoria.

Some of the new faces were children of former Overwatch; Fareeha Amari, known as Pharah, was the most prominent of that particular category. Like most, she had joined to pick up where her mother had left off; as one of the few people with combat command experience, she quickly found herself as the leader of a strike team of six agents.

Others still joined without any past ties to Overwatch; hopeful applicants who had been too young - or hadn’t been born at all - during the original founding, and others still who wished to join for their own reasons. Aleksandra Zaryanova, Lúcio Correia dos Santos and Hana Song were some of the more famous fresh recruits; each with their personal motivations, unique skillsets and claims to fame even before they had stepped through the proverbial door.

While each recruit was unique in their particulars, two things were universally apparent.

Everyone needed feeding, and Winston’s supply of peanut butter was a jealously hoarded resource.

Hence, the mess was usually a self-descriptive room. Having been part of the lunch staff roster, Jesse McCree was catching the tail end of the thrice-daily rush; the crowd was thinning out, and there were plenty of spaces to choose from. He found a nearly empty table, pushed his tray of food and a mug of coffee onto it, and began clearing the plate, one spoonful of mass-produced food at a time, his other hand unholstering a phone and swiping it on, thumbing through notifications and bringing up the news.

It’s not long before another tray of food joined his.

“Hey, cowboy, lemme borrow your hat!”  
  
Jesse smirks as his hat is once again plucked from his head, and finds a new nest atop a brunette’s head, competing with her own headgear for the cranial real estate. Hana Song - D.Va to the world - spins around to take a selfie with the walking anachronism in the background. He throws up a shoulder, flicking his sarape over his face just as the phone camera clicks. Hana makes a disappointed noise as she turns back towards McCree, only for him to take a long pull of his coffee and throw a trademark Smirk™ at her.

“You do realize I still got a bounty on my head, right?”

Hana waves if off with a flick of her fingers. “I’ll just say you were a cosplayer.”

“A cos-what-now?” Jesse arches his eyebrow, reaching up to retrieve his hat - to which Hana offers no resistance, even leaning forward to let him grab it by the top and return it to its usual perch - before settling it back onto his head.  
  
“There are people who dress up as you, you know?” She replies, rapidly typing on her phone and firing off the photo - within seconds, the image of D.Va wearing McCree’s hat was now posted to every social media site on the planet, and she drops back down onto the bench and tap-tap-taps away before showing him her phone. On it are people of all shapes and shades, wearing clothes of equally various quality but most to the tune of a red sarape and wide brimmed hats, with holstered revolvers and cheeky grins. His eyebrows manage to reach new heights as he finds bikini-versions of his armor, as well as some which had done away with the body armor entirely.  
  
“Dang.” McCree’s eyebrows shoot up as he reaches over and scrolls, eyes scanning the screen before passing it back to Hana. “Gotta say, some of these are mighty impressive. Even got omnics and kids dressin’ up as me, huh?”

“Yup! A few even had their cybernetic arms changed just so that theirs can look like yours!” Hana cheerfully proclaims, flashing him a picture of a young boy, holding a water pistol in his metal arm and ‘smoking’ a lollipop.  
  
McCree felt a strange stirring at that, his steel-and-circuit arm flexing idly as he took another slow drag of his coffee.  
  
“Well, that is awfully flattering of them.” He murmurs slowly to himself.

“Oooh, we’re talking about cosplayers, are we?” Comes a thick Essex-flavored voice, and McCree’s hat is once again taken, this time ending up on a certain British ex-pilot’s head as she bangs down a tray of her own. “Yea, you’re going to get a few if you’re Overwatch. I’ve had a few. Mercy gets _buttloads_. Everyone’s been done a few times; even Reinhardt. Bunch of engineering students took a power loader and slapped on a bunch of armor plates just like a Crusader’s. Really smashing stuff!”

“Sadly, they weren’t allowed to use any rockets.” Huffed D.Va, helpfully googling the photos in question as McCree finds the phone back in her hands without even registering that it had even gone in the first place. Moments later, Tracer was holding up a finger to tip McCree’s hat and another photo was thrown up to the wildlands of the internet.

“Y’know, we could do a series. Have everyone at Overwatch wear it. I’d _love_ to see Symmetra wear it, she’s so straight-laced. Oooh, and Torbjorn too!”  
  
“Seen it on Torb already. Most o’ the original members have, love.” Tracer giggles. “Jesse’s hat already made the rounds years ago, from what I hear.”  
  
“Oh? Really?” D.Va grins at the thought, her eyes flashing over to where Soldier: 76, Ana and Reinhardt are rising from their seats. “Even Dad?”  
  
Lena laughs at the thought. “Yep! Lost a bet and had to wear it for the next combat mission, even.”  
  
“Say what you will about his fashion sense, but Morrison keeps his promises. Not a thread out of place when I got it back.” Nods Jesse, smiling in warm nostalgia as he thought back to that strange and admittedly satisfying day. “Almost everyone’s had a turn with the hat. Even Athena’s worn it, y’know?”

D.Va’s eyebrows furrowed. “Wait, what? How’d Athena do that?”  
  
“I put it on top of her mainframe for a day.” McCree chuckles. “Right, Athena?”

“Agent McCree is correct. I have had my turn at wearing his hat.” Athena chimes in, and soon Hana’s phone has an email; a picture of a server rack with a familiar, beat up hat resting atop them.  
  
“... that is strangely adorable and I approve.” Nods Hana, throwing McCree a thumbs up as Tracer winks into position behind her, peering over the fellow brunette’s shoulder and ‘aww’ing at the photo on the screen, lips curling in nostalgic glee.

McCree takes this opportunity to reach over and once again return his hat to his head, though he’s sure that it’ll be moving on again soon enough.

“So we should continue the tradition.” Hana grins. “Get a bunch of the new agents to wear the hat.”

“Bounty.” McCree argues.

“Cosplay.” Hana retorts, and sticks out her tongue.

Tracer grins. “I’ll get my camera. The highspeed one!”

“Fiiine.” The cowboy surrenders.

And yet, despite the sour response, he's smiling when he spoons his lunch into his mouth.

Headcanon time!  
\- Reinhardt, thanks to his admiration of knights, was actually a really good swordsman (and rider, before he bulked up enough that it became dangerous for the horses to carry him). He keeps up practice with Genji (who calls it 'the Dark Souls experience' when they spar), but sadly the Bundeswehr issued him a rocket propelled hammer so he's super rusty. He has no complaints, because rocket propelled hammers are awesome.

-Ranks for the military members of Overwatch (past and present):  
\-- Jack Morrison - General (technically). He's most remembered as Strike Commander during the Omnic Crisis and the 'golden age' of Overwatch immediately afterwards. He was promoted several times since, but remained Strike Commander in the public memory.  
\-- Gabriel Reyes - Captain (same rank as Morrison before the latter was promoted to Strike Commander). He kept that rank despite Blackwatch becoming a battalion-sized force (thus 'requiring' a Major to command it) out of spite.  
\-- Reinhardt Wilhelm - Hauptmann/Captain. Technically, he belongs to the tank corps despite being 'infantry'.  
\-- Ana Amari - 'arif/Corporal (when she first joined Overwatch), rising steadily to the rank of Captain before her 'death'  
\-- Fareeha Amari - Molazim/Lieutenant (went straight to the OCS equivalent rather than being enlisted, unlike her mother).  
\-- Aleksandra Zaryanova - Serzhánt/Sergeant; she straight up enlisted as a private to join the military ASAP, and was quickly promoted to Sergeant for her heroism (and because Omnic targeting protocols sorts by rank descending) during the outbreak of the Second Omnic Crisis.  
\-- Hana 'D.Va' Song is a Byeongjang/Sergeant, as she leads her own squad of pilots in MEKA.

\- Hana's second favorite genre of games are rhythm games in the same style as Osu!, which she often uses to warm up before playing Starcraft.  
\-- Lucio is delighted when he sees her playing a sped-up remix of his song during a stream and specifically makes faster paced 'experimental' songs because of it.

\- Zarya takes advantage of her hands free rest/leg days to answer fan-mail, catch up on journals on applied physics, and perform other paperwork things (she's good with numbers and moonlights as Overwatch's spare accountant when Winston is forced to delegate). You can often find her on an exercise bike tapping away on a tablet or her phone.  



	2. Bastion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, its been a while - and busy times it has been over the Christmas and New Years - but here's the next chapter of the Hattening, featuring our favorite sentry turret, Bastion!

“Over here, luvs!” Lena calls out as she slowly jogs up the steps, Jesse and Hana in tow as they made their way up onto the gardens. Ever since Reinhardt’s quest to put the remains of his mentor to rest (along with every Crusader they could identify), Mei’s restoration project had become the usual haunt of the Bastion Siege Automaton shaped bird they had picked up in the forests surrounding the famous castle. 

It seemed to enjoy sitting - not deployed in Sentry mode, but actually sitting - at the edge of the artificial river running through the garden, flourishing once again after years of sitting unattended. That's where they found it, quietly humming to itself. 

“Hey there, partner.” Jesse waves at the omnic, who traverses its head around to greet them with a wave of its repair limb. Jesse smiled as he slowly, calmly made his way over. “How's the water?”

In reply Bastion chirped happily, swinging its ‘toes’ at the edge of the stream. The cowboy plops down beside it.

“Okay. And Ganymede? How's he?”

Bastion’s head elevates. Above them, a lime green bird whistled inquisitively.

“Yeah, we'll see a bit getting you some Eichenwald oak, buddy. Don't think we can grow it fast enough though.”

‘Peep’ was the answer. 

Jesse just shrugged skyward in askance. “And what can I do about that? All I got are a honking great big gun and some flashbangs.”

Bastion chirps unhelpfully.

“Okay, so i got an arm like Bastion’s too. But don't you get started on me as well!”

Ganymede twitters.

“You're not seriously arguing with the bird, are you?” Hana butts in.

The cowboy shrugs. “Hope not, 'cause the bird is winning.”

Said bird chirrups happily.

“Smart cookie, ain't he?” Lena laughs, before her eyes go wide and she covers her mouth. Seemingly homing in on the word, Ganymede swoops down and buzzed the former fighter pilot. “Hey! I don't have any, Ganny! Shoo, go bother Hana!”

“What? No!” Hana yelps. But it was too late, and the green parrot derivative was angling for another close pass, this time at the teen in the pink hoodie. McCree was unhelpful, laughing it up as he backed away from the two brunettes, in case the next flyby became a strafing run.

With a disappointed whoo, Bastion turned to Jesse, cocking its head to one side. 

He shrugs. “Well, aside from seeing how you were going, we wanted you to wear my hat.”

The omnic trills softly, confused, as Hana walks away from where Tracer and Ganymede had fallen into an impromptu dogfight, plucking Jesse's hat from his head and offering it to the omnic. 

“Yup! Just wanted to put it on your head,oppa.” Hana explains while McCree looks on in amusement, giving the omnic a crooked smile as she slowly steps closer.

Cocking his head to the other side once again, Bastion chirped inquisitively, its single ‘eye’ pulsing as it focused on the cowboy’s hat. Plodding closer, it’s gun-arm very firmly pointed away from any one of the three human visitors, the siege automaton seemed to be running plenty of scans as its boxy head seemed to orbit around the headwear.

More questioning tweets issue forth from the omnic, as it hunches down to inspect the hat more closely.

“Its for a good cause?” Lena offered, pleasantly puffing as she pulls in with the lime bird in tow, smiling nervously as Jesse let out a soft chuckle. “We just want to have a picture of you while you’re wearing the hat!”

To demonstrate, Hana puts the hat on her head and has another picture taken by Lena. With a low coo, Bastion’s body-language perks up again as understanding dawns. The omnic seemed to consider this, rapid but soft tweeting as it began to reach up with its more human-like hand and plucked the hat from Hana’s head.

It then put the hat on upside down.

“That’s the wrong way up, love.” Lena let out a kind chuckle as Bastion toyed with the hat, pushing it down with gentle care, until it could more or less move around without it falling off. More excited chittering and rapid whistles summon Ganymede from his roost, the little green bird chirping curiously as it landed on the edge of the hat, then hopped inside with a happy peep.

“Aww no. I hope you toilet trained the birdie!” Jesse groans, his lips pressing into a flat line of worry.

Hana - blissfully uncaring - snaps another picture, joining Bastion’s happy chirping as Lena laughs sympathetically, giving McCree a good natured punch. “Don’t worry, mate, won’t be the worst thing we’ve had to clean off of it.”

The anachronism scrubs his beard with his gloved hand as he makes a show of pondering thoughtfully, “True, but that was my blood, not the bird’s sh-”

“Greetings!”

McCree just about jumped out of his boots as he whirls around on the newcomer. “-iiiiiiiit! GoddammitZennystopcreepingonuslikethat!”

The omnic monk’s face is somehow smug despite not having the muscles to emote that particular expression. Instead he floats over to join the peanut gallery observing D.Va and Bastion’s impromptu photoshoot, where Hana’s convinced Bastion to wear the hat ‘properly’ now, letting Ganymede perch on one of her earpieces in return. She reverses the camera and promptly begins taking shots of herself with both bot and bird.

“I heard about your little quest.” Zenyatta intones.

McCree finds a habit forming as he runs his fingers through his hair. “Who from?”

“Ore daaaa~!” Salutes a green cyborg ninja, who leans forward to duck under the wild haymaker from McCree, chuckling at the burnet’s aggrieved ‘Stop doing that!’. Tracer’s all giggles as Jesse’s serape flares like a frilled lizard hissing at something annoying.

“Someone’s gonna give me a heart attack one of these days.” Jesse mutters. 

“Stop sounding like Dad, Cowboy.” Hana cackles from afar, getting a rude gesture from McCree in return.

Bastion returns it with a happy chirp.

“Oh. Great. So that is what it’s gonna learn from me? Bastion, you make sure you don’t do that to anyone except me!”

The Siege Automaton trills affirmatively, wiggling its almost-clenched hand as it did.

Genji falls over backwards as Zenyatta chuckles unhelpfully. 

McCree retrieves his hat, growling as he fixes it back in place. “Awww I am so gonna catch hell for that...”


End file.
